Fun Gala, AGM and Awards Ceremony

The Spencer Swim Team Fun gala, AGM and Awards Ceremony was held on 10th November. In our first ever Fun Gala we had four teams: Aces High, Bottoms Up, Cowboys and Dragons battling out the elaborate handicapping system for the ultimate bragging rights and street rep.

Bottoms Up went down in the history books as the winners of the first ever Spencer Fun Gala and their exploits will surely inspire future competitors to seek glory and the recognition of their peers.

AGM – the club has had an amazing year on a few counts:
1) Membership numbers have grown
2) The club has had a financially healthy year
3) The new kit has made us stand out in meets

Spencer Team Awards 2018

Dave Mace Award 2018 for outstanding contribution to the club – Laura Mason
Laura has been a very long term member of the swimming club. An excellent all round swimmer, she specialises in front crawl and was a top ten finisher at the 5k open Water World Championships in Hungary in 2016. She has occupied all the major positions in the club with skill, diplomacy, humility and effectiveness. She has recently occupied the Treasurer role and carried this out whilst parenting two baby boys.
Laura is the stand out candidate well deserving winner of the Dave Mace Award for 2018.

Best Out of Towner – Diane Ford
3 breaststroke golds at Europeans, broke 2 British records and 1 European at Sheffield, part of the World Record team. Been one of the top masters competitor over the years, and the only British swimmer that has attended All World Masters Championships.
What more is there to say?!

Best In Towner – Olegas Petrikas
Olegas joined us with a real hatred of long distance swimming, i.e. 51 metres plus!
He has however knuckled down to training and is now a superb sprinter up to 100m. Don’t challenge Olegas to a transition race, the first 15 metres is his and all underwater.
4 PBs at the nationals and a sub minute 100 for freestyle all point to great results.

Best overseas Member – Claudia Goldschmidt
Any swimmer willing to travel 1000 miles for a home meet must be worthy of recognition! Not once but numerous times, St Pauls Inter club challenge, Spencer Club annual gala, Nationals. Flight from Dusseldorf to England each time to compete.
Great results at the nationals also with 3 top 7 finishes in 50, 100 and 800 freestyle. (7, 6, 5 respectively).

Most improved Swimmer – Nadine Horn
Nadine joined within the past year and her swimming is simply unrecognisable to when she joined. Times have plummeted. She puts her improvement down to natural talent and Vorsprung Durch Technik. Importantly she has been instrumental in the Facebook revolution which has had a significant impact on everyone’s in box.

Best Newcomer – Barbara Halls
Barbara is a returner to swimming after 20 years out. As an under 40 swimmer! This has been a real challenge to technique and effort. She has competed at sprint, distance and sea swimming. Just to make things tough she decided to break a bone in the summer, but still managed to change her technique on breaststroke and come in with double digit personal bests at the national championships.

Most consistent trainer –   Luca Milana
Luca is simply never missing! He joined the swimming club 2 years ago as a decidedly average swimmer. His application, effort and attendance are second to no one and his times tell. He is also not a one stroke man, happy to do all strokes and individual medley in racing.

Best attitude toward training – Olivier Geleoc
A water polo player so he surely cannot swim!!!! Olivier has shown a phlegmatic attitude to both Brexit and training that has seen him visit the white telephone more than once in training.
A superb technician, his front crawl times have come down in the year and a recent 58.5 100m freestyle at 44 years old is simply, magnifique!! Multiple gold medallist at the nationals.
Allez, On-Y-Va Olivier.

Open Water Swimmer of the Year – Lisa Hibberd
Lisa swims 365 days a year in open water except in a leap year. She competed in no fewer than 10 events of 5, 10 and 15k. She was 8th in the European 5k in Slovenia and took part in the Hurley Burley, a 10k in Wales at a balmy 10 degrees. She also won the Isle of Wight sea swim and in total competed in over 80k of racing this year.

Fun Awards
1) Most outrageous jammers / swimsuit – Oliver Samy Oliver is a trailblazer for men members of the club as he is the first man to win this award in Spencer’s history!

2) Best Quip Award – Olivier Geleoc. Olivier is known for his wit and relaxed demeanour. But do not be tricked by this as he is one of the hardest training members of the club and has deservingly won Best Attitude Toward Training award.

3) Most competitive swimmer – Lara Langston. You can achieve anything that you set your mind to and Lara is a living embodiment of it. Congratulations on your amazing and inspiring journey.

4) Disobedience Award – Luca Milana. One may ask “How is it possible for one person to win the Most Consistent Trainer and Disobedience awards?” Luca will no doubt explain this to you after you Sign the Sheet!

5) Extra fun award Kit Secretary of the year – Georgie Quayle. Georgie brought Spencer kit design and purchase system into XXI century. Spencer hats were a massive hit in Sheffield, many thanks Georgie!

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